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"Intended" - Silius Lead Game Designer Vanguard SOE
Teala
Member RarePosts: 7,627
Well it seems Silius is going to make Vanguard play the way he wishes it to play....players be damned. Once again SOE is just proving something I have been preaching since...oh I dunno...forever. GU4 of Vanguard brings lots of nice little "mucked" up changes to a game that was actually improving. Now we're loosing character customization features out the wahzoo...,they continue to re-write riftways and how they work(for the 3rd frakking time!) and to top that off...if your mounted on a horse and so much as sneeze...you'll be dismounted. Yep that's right, cast a spell like a buff from a horse and you'll get dumped on your arse. Change a piece of armour and - yep you'll get dumped on your arse as your horse goes poof. When this was brought to the attention of the powers that be and asked if it was a bug. The reply from this total brain dead, who cares what the players think, so-called lead game designer named Silius says and only says..."Intended".
So out of the blue Silius and the wondrous half wits who are now working on Vanguard decided that players needed more frustration and decided to add the little feature of dismounting players from their mounts for doing anything but ride it. WTF! Seriously....WTF! I have loved playing Vanguard. I am---was one of their biggest fans and promoted the game to get people to play it.
NOT ANYMORE!
Not as long as Silius is lead game designer in charge of the development of Vanguard. From now on, I will do my best to persuade people to"NOT" play Vanguard until Silius is out and they get someone in their who is friendly to the player community. This guy is a total jerk. Yes...he is a total jerk. Of all the people that I have encountered that works on games like this never have I seen a person go out of their way to alienate a player community with their piss poor attitude(my way or my way and screw you players I am making the game - not you and anything you say is meaningless and I could careless!)
I cannot speak for the rest of the Vanguard community, but from what I have been reading on the official forums this guy is ticking many, many other players off left and right with these and other stupid, uncalled for, and irrational changes to make the game less and less fun to play. The new riftway changes are a total joke. The fact that they are removing features from character customization which is one of Vanguards strongest points is mind boggling!
What is even more mind boggling is the total waste of resources re-writing whole classes instead of working on coding things that really need it and have needed it for a long time. Like "quest!" Yes folks some of the best quest in the game are still being neglected....to this day and some have been broken since day one! What do the brilliant minds of SOE who work on Vanguard decided to do instead of fix broken quest...premier quest at that like Pantheon of the Ancients...they decide to pull an SOE mini-NGE on Vanguard.
Totally rewriting classes which changes how they are played...this after a whole year. I will admit there were a couple of classes that could use so work...but nothing like they are doing. What they should have done was add new paths to diverse the classes at higher levels in some manner, give them branches to different skill sets and or new archetypes. Not rewrite what all ready exist and not now! OMG we have bugs still in game that were there from day one and we've been bugging them forever and a day and do they get fixed - no.
A suggestion to Smedley. Fire Silius. Get someone else back in there who knows a thing about communicating with the fans and players. Second. Keep your stinking word...just once stop lying...and follow through with what you said when you guys bought Vanguard. You promised you'd not pull an NGE and you promised you'd not stear away from where the original game was suppose to get to and you also stated you'd fix what was broken(quest and bugs!) and that you'd fix performance and then address adding some of the content we were told was going to be added....like a the New Player Island, and ship-to-ship combat and ship-to-sea monster combat and combat from horse back and new lands added to Kojan and lots of new quest and a little more polish to Kojan....etc, etc, etc...you know what we were told...no need for me to repeat it Smedley.
Now granted I will give credit to the tweaks to performance and the optimization of Khal - but don't stop at Khal...fix New Targanor, and all the other major cities. Don't remove character customization options. Find a solution behind the reason for removing them. Don't take the lazy way out and move Vanguard back a step in game development. The changes that are coming down are taking Vangaurd back to pre-2000 days of gaming. Why?! Makes no sense. Not when other games are adding more customization.
Enough.
The people who are in charge of the development of Vanguard need to pull their collective proverbial heads from the dark nether regions and start doing the right thing - FOR ONCE. Just once...and listen to the players who say...enough all ready! Stop mucking up our game and just fix it. Stop tweaking what does not need to be tweaked and just fix the stinking game!
Comments
Hey Teala,
Yeah, I agree SOE is the most knotheaded company in the genre. I don't get them at all.
Anyway, I just resubbed to VG and have been liking it. But as you pointed out, you always, no matter what game you play with SOE need to stay somewhat detached from it because you just know they are going to f*ck it sooner or later. They screwed EQII, SWG , PS and Matrix. It was only a matter of time before they "upgraded" VG.
The customization...I wonder were you in early beta? Oh, what we have now is nothing compared to beta. I was hoping some of that would have made it back in the game but I guess not. I made a short, fat, bald guy that frankly you can not make today. Now I am confused. I thought the reason they were pulling out the face stuff was for the helms. I was of the impression, that was all they were changing for now UNTIL they do that optimization they have been talking about for the last 6 months.
Is this "optimization" just a stripping down of even more of the little bit of selection we already have? I thought they said they were rewriting not removing.
The horse thing stinks, are you sure? I ride around in diplomacy cloths. (I use droxUI which has an icon to switch outfits on the UI) So I can only ride in armor now? Its not a big deal but it does f*ck with things.
How major is this class revamp? I didn't see any real notes on it but TBH I haven't really looked yet.
The riftway...tbh, I don't see how that is going to make a dfference to a game with a small population that continues to shrink.
As a general rule in the service industry, its never a good tactic to take something away from customers that they have grown accustom to. SOE seems to feed on doing the opposite of that.
All in all, shoulda known better then to get attached to an SOE game. Its like playing with fire then being surprised when you get torched.
Do not play "The Agency" or "Pirates of the Burning Sea"...they WILL do it there also. Don't mess with EQII , PS, matrix or SWG, they have done it in the past and they WILL do it again. Its not an 'If" its "when". I don't go around bashing on SOE, I generally just avoid their games but honestly...they bring it on themselves. The sooner people stop propping them up the sooner they will shut down their MMO division. That would be a blessing to the genre. Nothing good has come out of them since EQ and they even jacked that game all to hell.
Silius used to be the crafting Dev. He often pissed off the crafters, but was usually right for the game. He also was very active on the crafting forums and willing to announce his decisions.
I love the game too and have played it since release and have watched GU4 closely. My thoughts on just a few of the points.
1) Riftways. While originally opposed to the new riftway system, I am now looking forward to it. I'm working on an alt now and simply do not want to travel vast distances across continents to group with my guildies. Our guild has 6-7 people in my alt's range, I need to get to them quickly in order to group as I typically don't have much time to play and cannot spend most of that trying to get to them.
2) Not casting while on mounts. Don't understand this completely, but it doesn't bother me much though as it's relatively minor. Maybe it will help with some of the mount exploits or perhaps it's original design that you shouldn't be able to levitate you AND your horse or invis you AND your horse. The old D&D person in me kinda jives with the changes.
3) Face customizatiion - It will be a painful interim step, agreed. But I thought Silius made a very good post on the intent and the overall game plan for this change. In summary, rebuilding the character models to ultimately look better and require less processing power is a huge under-taking and is going to require this in between step to get there. Personally, I look forward to recognizing people soley on looks and not their name. Right now there is a TON of customizations that are very small and don't do a whole lot to distinquish characters unless you are staring them right in the face. Whereas down the road, the plan is to add back in different customizations that have a bigger impact on the looks of the character.
4) The class redos have been very well received in my opinion. They are making DKs, Paladins and Warriors work as intended which ultimately adds more complexity to each and makes them even more distinct classes from one another. For example, in APW we've just been putting up our best warrior as tank against all mobs. After GU4 we will switch out Pally, Warrior or DK depending on the mob type to best leverage abilities and characteristics that will be much more specific to each class.
5) Agreed on the quests. Pantheon of the Ancients should be a very high priority as that could be a ridiculously fun quest line.
Personally, I think Silius does a good job communicating. No matter what he does, someone is going to whine about it... and some go so far as to personally attack him and call for his head. Yet, he continues to come to the board and answer as many questions as he can. I think a lot of people, if put in Sillius's shoes, would simply throw their hands up and tell the VGplayer posters to F themselves.
In the end, the game is getting better and the population is going up. But they need to be very careful not to go too far and dumb this game down because then they will lose the very people that make up the bulk of their player base. But so far, I think some of the fundamental changes being made are immediately necessary to improve the game.
Having just come down from a massive rant of tourrett-ian proportians myself, after the 12 page thread about the dismount bug - guess what a "volunteer mod" did? Locked the thread since it was about the Test Server.
SOE just couldn't keep it's head out of it's arse for more than 6 months on Vanguard.
Sadly, it doesn't look like there are ANY gaming options anymore.
i canceled my accnt too . . .
Wow! Quite the post.
I cant really argue with you. I dont care for this update myself. I did not like the way Silius repsonded with the "intended" comment. Frankly I think he needs a vacation. I think the departure of Avarem did not help with with his overall mood.
I have not given up on Silius yet. I have seen him make some major imporvements in this game and sometimes I feel that they have taken place on his sheer will alone.
I am a software developer. Often times we release a new version of the software that does not have any new features.. it just solves problems. I kind of look at this GU4 update as a maintenance release:
They had a rendering problem and they are fixing it by removing some facial customization. They have promised to put back customization is a later release. Yes, not the best solution. In addition a vocal group of people have cried that the helms where not displaying and this change helps implement helms.
They had a problem with Shaman with multiple skins and they are forcing them to relearn their skills. Again, not the most elegant solutions.
They have been critisized for not directing people to the big name content, so they have redesigned the riftway system to get them their. I dont think they did a very good job at it, especailly with no HUB In Kojan. My house is near a riftway they are removing, so I am not happy either.
I dont have a clue why they are dismounting people when they perform an action. My guess is its yet another kludge to fix an exsisting problem. Honestly I dont think they like to piss people off intentionally.
All I can do is hope the next release is better than this one. I think the last few months have been very posative direction for the game, and I hope that the next release will be more "fun".
Order 10 license(s) for 903.00 $US
I guess I'm more laid back than most in my somewhat advanced years
I did get pretty wound up about proposed changes for the first 3 Updates and honestly looking back, I can't remember what I thought was going to be so bad.
Wait and see I guess. I'm looking forward to beginning my permanent Flying Mount quest and for the rest of it, we'll see what the reaction is once it goes live.
Agree 100% Teala.
I follow the OVF an you were a big supporter of VG (also a hard critic at times but imo I took it as you were being a critic for the community, not just trolling to troll).
On test when Silius was asked about the dismounting issue when it first arose he told people to /bug it. Then 2-3 weeks later he comes onto the boards an gives a one word answer "Intended". If when you cancel your account sub they had a questionar asking why you quit, I would give the same one word reply "Silius".
This change is right up there with the face customization for me if not just a shade ahead of it. I was gonna just wear a helm till possibly GU5 or whenever they could give us more options. But taking a giant leap backwards with this dismounting with just defensive spells is the proverbial "straw that broke the camels back".
I mean, for god sakes, UO, the longest running MMO to date, if wikipedia is to be believed, has mounted spellcasting/combat! That's just sad.
I was gonna give it another go shortly after GU4 rolled out... not anymore.
Threads over there about dismounting are being deleted or moved to test server forum where even less will read about before it goes live. Also topics relating to GU4 eta, since it was supposed to come out this week but hasnt an no word form devs on the delay etc are being locked.
What a shame.
Another thought in regard to the perceived intent to dumb this game down to be like WoW or a WoW-clone (LotRO, AoC etc.) I don't think Sony would intend to do that or want to do that because they simply could not compete. Their strategy has got to be to differentiate VG from all the others and appeal to a player base that is sick of the Same Ole Stuff. But had the same time, the barrier to entry can't be so steep that new players because immediately frustrated and quit.
At lower levels, I can understand some of the changes that might be considered dumbing down like the riftways. But at the higher levels, raiding for one, they should absolutely maintain the challenge and diversity of APW. A balance here would be the winning formula.
For example, our guild has two active players in both EQ2 and VG. They both had difficulty and frustration when leveling up in VG, getting around etc.. Both quit VG early and then returned recently. On the higher content side of things, both agree the raiding in VG is much more fun, challenging and rewarding than in EQ2. Even though a wipe in APW might mean the end of a raid, it's the risk-reward they appreciate.
Balance, don't turn off new players, but maintain complexity challenge, risk-reward as a core part of VG.
I say if you cannot add helms to the game without totally mucking up the customization that is currently in game - then don't add them until you find a solution that does work. Other games allow for far more customization and the coders for Vanguard cannot come up with a better way without reverting back to circa 2000 graphics. Why?
I've played Vg since the end of Beta 2, but even back then I really don't think I've ever felt as disenchanted wih the game as I do right now.
Is it Arrogance or incompetence that allows Silius to not only give one-word answers, but to take things the were called BUGS on Test three weeks ago to be "intended" now?
I really fear that SOE is trying to kill Vanguard. I can see their post now, "Due to lack of players, SOE has sadly decided to close down all Vanguard servers..." Paranoia? You gotta wonder.
Only after people were able to log into test to see the "minor" changes and started to let the masses know how utterly little was left to customize with... Silius comes onto the boards and says he didnt know the changes were going to be so extensive...
just like the removal of KoS faction between good an evil races (thought a bug at first but was later found out was stealthed in without anythin said on GU patch notes)...
and now with the dismounting after it being asked to be bugged for 2 weeks on test (recently declared intended by the same person who asked to /bug it)... ya.
This is the same guy who said the facial changes would be "nothing drastic" just weeks before they went to test and also said those changes were something they had been planning on for months. He also let loose that they were planning on "optimizing" the rest of the character body model next.
I agree with what some others say here that I don't trust what he says and the way he presents things misleading at first then after the fact it has the tone of "This is what we are doing, so deal with it". Reading his words give me little reason to have faith in the games direction.
when is this change supposed to go live out of curiosity?
the changes are supposed to go live this week.
I think the horse dismounting thing is to prevent kiting and the other impacts like bufing and other things are a side effect of the change. I think the ultimate goal is to prevent people from fighting on horseback with spells and ranged attacks? Does that make sense? Since my computer is dead till this weekend when I need to rebuild it I can't check
Now mounted combat would be nice but I don't think mounted combat has been added to the game yet?
I agree that silius has no PR sense, I also think he is not deceptive just doesn't explain things well. I think he is a good and dedicated guy and has a reasonable sense of what he is doing but mostly from a pure engineer perspective. He has little or no people sense. Having managed tech people for years he fits a typical tech archtype
Extremely intelligent, intolerant of idiots, and unable to understand why people don't see what he says is right. On the other hand he is likely extremely capable, very hard working and able to litterally move mountains when he needs to. He is probably a bit of a hot head and doesn't control himself well when he gets pissed off. If I were his manager I'd have someone do the communicating for him and have him work more with the tech team.
Personally from the picture or growing the game and making it more accessable I think they are doing good.
---
Ethion
VG will see little change aside from new raid zones. I'm guessing what spawned all the focus for minimal performance increases by reducing character customization was the trouble they had with APW and the lagfest they experienced in developing it. I also believe that they were too far down the road of new models to turn back when the players found what was really causing all the lag. It's sad really, but that's what you get when you have such a small staff of inexperienced personnel.
These changes to actions while mounted probably have to do with permanent flying mounts and the PvP server. I'm not sure how heals and buff spells differ from offensive abilities code-wise, but it'd be terrible to have someone parked on a flying mount casting heals and such, completely out of the range of melee fighters. I'm only guessing that this has some relation.
And yes, I agree, Silius is a tool and needs a vacation. A permanent one.
Thank you I just bought it and was wondering when these big changes were supposed to hit.
After leveling 3 toons to lvl 50 and wasting much time on what is really a long drawn out beta ...i have quit vg. The game i have been waiting for is not to far away now so ..here`s to tcos.
www.tcos.com/downloads/xfer/The_Chronicles_of_Spellborn__Azrael_&_Raznilof_Part1.wmv
LOL.. Can I have your stuff?
These kinds of anger based rants almost make me want to resub to VG, curiously enough. Mostly because it shows that the developers are willing to ignore the often irrational demands of players who are not in the know as to what is going on behind the scenes, in order to continue working towards their goal. If they were to listen to players, the game probably would be quite broken.
But sure, it's always easy to get annoyed over changes to any system, especially if viewed from the outside, where one can not see the cogs in the gears that the change is attempting to smooth over. Especially if those changes are made by a company that has a massive negative stigma due to a subset of vocal players (like say, the swg vets) who feel a need to rant about it every couple of days, years after the fact. While ignoring the fact that most mmo devs do the exact same thing in most mmos. Including but not limited to putting interim code in as a placeholder until the changes are complete, such as limiting the avatar customization as a temporary fix, or knocking you off your mount, giving them a chance to implement the full fixes to whatever issue was relevant.
If the demands were irrational, I might agree.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean that as an insult or anything negative towards the people making demands etc, only refering to it as irrational as from the perspective of a developer.. for instance the players might say "we want this!" and the dev would say "ok, sure, but to make that, I have to do this this and this first, else the code would break" then the players would go "well f%#k that, I want this now!, you suck and should get fired because you aren't doing it now!" sort of irrational.
Anyway I just converted my potbs subscription to a full station access pass, thanks to Teala's rant
Now to find where I put my VG LE disks and get this beast up and running once more.
"intended" - at least he said something.
In Lotro you can't do anything on horseback, not even talk to NPCs. Devs rarely comment on any changes outside of the Monthly Dev Chats that are like political debates - questions approved before hand.